52 ON SELECTING NURSERY PLANTS. 
that are apt to get bare and destitute of fibres. When these 
sorts have acquired the proper size for transplanting into the 
forest, they are much improved, particularly the oak, by being 
removed or disturbed in the nursery lines a year previous to 
their being finally planted. This removal, if it should only 
be from the site of one nursery line to the next, insures a 
mass of fibrous roots, requiring no pruning on being planted 
out, which gives the plant a great advantage over those not 
so treated. And although, in consequence of being thus dis- 
turbed, they are not so full in the display of young wood, yet 
they are far more valuable than plants that have not been 
recently removed, though the latter appear the more vigorous. 
When an excess of vigour appears in hardwood plants, they 
seldom take readily to the ground on being removed, parti- 
cularly if they have been nursed in a sheltered situation. 
Plants of every description, and especially those of the pine 
tribe that are to become the inhabitants of bleak exposures, 
should, in the nursery, have the benefit of open and airy 
ground, to admit of the play of the wind on all sides; and 
such as have been transplanted the preceding year will have 
the best roots and the hardiest tops, and are best adapted to 
survive under adverse circumstances. 
